A Non-Profit Organization JanuMayary 20142015 • VoVolumelume 36:535:1 What Did Brunol say? Page 6 Competition and Cooperation in Cryonics Page 5 ISSN 1054-4305 Is Suspended Animation a Crazy Dream? Page 13 Oregon Cryonics Page 17 $9.95 Improve Your Odds of a Good Cryopreservation You have your cryonics funding and contracts in place but have you considered other steps you can take to prevent problems down the road? ü Keep Alcor up-to-date about personal and medical changes. ü Update your Alcor paperwork to reflect your current wishes. ü Execute a cryonics-friendly Living Will and Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care. ü Wear your bracelet and talk to your friends and family about your desire to be cryopreserved. ü Ask your relatives to sign Affidavits stating that they will not interfere with your cryopreservation. ü Attend local cryonics meetings or start a local group yourself. ü Contribute to Alcor’s operations and research. Contact Alcor (1-877-462-5267) and let us know how we can assist you. Visit the ALCOR FORUMS www.alcor.org/forums/ Discuss Alcor and cryonics topics with other members and Alcor officials. • The Alcor Foundation • Financial • Cell Repair Technologies • Rejuvenation • Cryobiology • Stabilization • Events and Meetings Other features include pseudonyms (pending verification of membership status) and a private forum. Visit the ALCOR BLOG www.alcor.org/blog/ Your source for news about: • Cryonics technology • Speaking events and meetings • Cryopreservation cases • Employment opportunities • Television programs about cryonics Alcor is on Facebook Connect with Alcor members and supporters on our official Facebook page: www.facebook.com/alcor.life.extension.foundation Become a fan and encourage interested friends, family members, and colleagues to support us too. rofit Organization A Non-P lume 36:5 y 2015 • Vo CONTENTS Ma say? 17 Oregon Cryonics: An Introduction unol and Interview with Jordan Sparks id Br t D Wha Oregon Cryonics is a new cryonics Page 6 organization in Salem, Oregon. The organization offers a number of cryopreservation options and also chemical preservation of the COVER STORY: PAGE 6 brain. Alcor member Carrie Wong has visited the organization to find What Did Brunol Say? Notes out more about its operation and from the Architect of the first goals. Also included is an interview nics yo ISSN 1054-4305 in CrControlled Human Cryonics tion with Jordan Sparks, the founder pera m? and Coo Preservationsrea and Executive Director, about the on $9.95 n a Crazy D Competiti atio Some previously unpublished history, present, and future of the Page 5 ed Anim pend Is Sus correspondence of Dante Brunol organization. Page 13 yonics n Cr sheds light on his role in early Orego Page 17 cryonics cases, including that of 22 Membership Statistics James Bedford. Also included How many members, associate members, and patients does Alcor is an unpublished letter from Saul Kent to Brunol and a pro- have and where do they live? On the cover: cryonics article by Brunol from Resuscitation Update Dante Brunol, Via Veneto, Rome, Italy, 24 1967, “Is Suspended Animation Mike Perry surveys the news May 1969. Photo courtesy of Robert Nelson a Crazy Dream?” (cropping). and research to report on new developments that bring us closer to the resuscitation of cryonics patients. 5 QUOD INCEPIMUS CONFICIEMUS Competition and Cooperation in Cryonics The existence of multiple cryonics organizations is not a zero-sum game and can give rise to more choice, protection, and publicity. Under which conditions should we welcome a new cryonics organization, and are their opportunities for cooperation? 13 Is Suspended Animation a Crazy Dream? “Do not wait for the last week. Decide now... I repeat: make all arrangements, right now.” www.alcor.org Cryonics / May 2015 3 2015 Annual Giving Program lcor provides a wide array of services for you the member, and the general Editorial Board public. We inform and educate, we protect and preserve, and we strive to Saul Kent Aremain at the forefront of cryonics technology. Ralph C. Merkle, Ph.D. Since its founding, Alcor has relied on member support to maintain its mission R. Michael Perry, Ph.D. and attract new members. Your support, regardless of size, can provide a better future for all cryonicists. Please act now. Editor Aschwin de Wolf SUGGESTED GIVING LEVELS Contributing Writers $20 FRIEND Dante Brunol Aschwin de Wolf $60 JUNIOR SUpporter R. Michael Perry, Ph.D. $120 SUstaining SUpporter Carrie Wong $500 Advocate SUpporter Copyright 2015 by Alcor Life Extension Foundation $1,000 LEADING SUpporter All rights reserved. Reproduction, in whole or part, without $2,500 Visionary SUpporter permission is prohibited. $5,000 Silver SUpporter Cryonics magazine is published monthly. $10,000 GOLD SUpporter To subscribe to the printed edition $25,000 TitaniUM SUpporter and/or change your address, please call 480.905.1906 x101or visit the magazine $50,000 VANGUARD SUpporter website: www.alcor.org/magazine We encourage every member to donate. Even if you can only afford $5 right now, you will make a significant contribution to Alcor’s future. Please note: If you change your address less than Donations may be made via the Donations button on the Alcor website or by a month before the magazine is mailed, it may contacting Alcor’s Finance Director, Bonnie Magee, at [email protected]. Your be sent to your old address. donation may be made as a lump sum or divided into easy monthly payments. Address correspondence to: Cryonics Magazine 7895 East Acoma Drive, Suite 110 Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 Phone: 480.905.1906 Toll free: 877.462.5267 The James Bedford Society Fax: 480.922.9027 ifts have played a fundamental role in the cryonics Letters to the Editor welcome: movement since its earliest days. Dr. James Bedford, a [email protected] Gman whose extraordinary vision led him to become the first person to be cryopreserved, and the first to make a bequest to Advertising inquiries: a cryonics organization, exemplified the determination of the early 480.905.1906 x113 pioneers of cryonics. We invite you to follow in his footsteps, and [email protected] join the James Bedford Society. ISSN: 1054-4305 The James Bedford Society recognizes those who make a bequest of any size to the Alcor Life Extension Visit us on the web at www.alcor.org Foundation. If you have already provided a gift Alcor News Blog for Alcor in your estate, please send a copy of your relevant documents http://www.alcor.org/blog/ to Alcor’s Finance Director, Bonnie Magee. If you’d like to learn more about setting up a bequest, send an email to [email protected] or call 480-905-1906 x114 to discuss your gift. 4 Cryonics / May 2015 www.alcor.org Quod incepimus conficiemus Photo: Cryo-Care Equipment Corporation at 2340 E. Washington St., Phoenix, AZ. Dr. Bedford’s “home” in 1970 or 1971. COMPETITION AND Cooperation IN Cryonics By Aschwin de Wolf hen I told Jordan Sparks that because I do not think that a membership cryoprotection to vitrification. No sane his new cryonics organization, gain by one organization is necessarily at cryonics organization today would decide WOregon Cryonics, would be the expense of the other organizations. to offer freezing with a poor cryoprotectant featured in Cryonics magazine he was quite At this point the two major existing as the preferred protocol. In the future we surprised. To me it is obvious. I think that cryonics organizations (Alcor and the may see a wider embrace of brain-only cryonics is still in such a fragile state that Cryonics Institute) approach cryonics from cryopreservation, or even the addition new organizations can have a positive a different philosophy and have different of chemical preservation as a low-cost effect on other existing organizations. I price structures. It is also conceivable that option. The existence of multiple cryonics also believe that the existence of multiple in the future there will be a new cryonics organizations also leads to greater national cryonics organizations with different organization that pursues an explicit for- and international press coverage. services and pricing will bring cryonics profit model. In an ideal world, a cryonics organization within the reach of more people and can should be close enough to do prompt create a safer environment for the existing stabilization and cryoprotection without organizations. “In the future we may see a the need for air transport or prolonged Of course, not every new cryonics ground transport. If cooperation among organization should be enthusiastically wider embrace of brain-only organizations is excellent we may even see welcomed by existing cryonics organizations. cryopreservation, or even the that organizations make available (for a fee) A cryonics organization which does not their space to stabilize and cryoprotect a disclose any information about its protocols addition of chemical preservation patient of another organization to minimize or cases should be treated with great caution. as a low-cost option.” long periods of cold ischemia. Such an An organization that accepts patients on arrangement could be advantageous for all a “pay as you go” basis is at much greater organizations involved. risk of having to thaw their patients and The existence of multiple cryonics I admit being also rather relieved. cause a bad reputation to the field as a organizations also spurs innovation and Other than KrioRus, there has not been whole. A cryonics organization that seeks quicker adoption of new technologies. a new all-service cryonics provider since to gain members through the dissemination After all, most cryonics organizations the mid-1990s, and none at all in the of unrealistic promises or denigrating would like to be perceived as “state of Western Hemisphere. Running a cryonics statements about other organizations would the art” and the introduction of a new organization is not trivial so it is extremely not be helpful either.